Catiline, who died during his unsuccessful coup against the Roman Republic, was depicted even by his detractors as a man of considerable talent, charisma, and energy, as well as one of unrestrained impulses and vices (he was tried for deflowering a vestal virgin, for instance). Reader Andrew thought Sallust’s description of Catiline’s character was a […]
Read more...Hoisted from comments, courtesy Cullpepper. This gets As for concept and cleverness, even if the versification falls a bit short. Enjoy! ‘Twas the Night before Christmas And all through the bourse-houses All the traders were clicking, Glued fast to their mouses, Their bids were all tracked By the market with care In the hopes St. […]
Read more...Kipper Williams at the Guardian, hat tip reader Steve L:
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Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns Matt Taibbi is one of the few commentators in the mainstream media who is not worried about ‘access’ and has, therefore, been free to write much more critically about the economic crisis and reform efforts on Wall Street. His first piece was a polemic against Goldman Sachs, which triggered […]
Read more...By Augustus Melmotte, who lives and works in Hedgistan. The administration is examining strategies for encouraging the ownership of fluffy kittens. “I think we can all agree,” the president said, “that in troubled times stroking a fluffy kitten can really help a struggling family to stay on course.” The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has calculated […]
Read more...For the record, I actually do NOT like it when markets fall apart, even when I anticipate it and am correctly positioned for it (2007 and 2008). It’s very upsetting to watch. Every savvy investor I know has been expecting a mild to meaningful correction. So independent of its seriousness, the Dubai World frisson could […]
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Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns Barack Obama has now come clean about his thinking on why his administration has decided to focus first on reducing the deficit and next on jobs. He fears a double-dip recession will occur if foreigners lose confidence in the U.S. dollar, causing interest rates to spike. This is nonsense […]
Read more...John Hempton illustrates the operation of an underdiscussed cognitive bias, social validation, which social psychologist Robert Cialdini described as one of the six primary influence techniques in his classic Influence: The Art of Persuasion. And it can be deadly, as Hempton warns: Saturday afternoon and I had volunteer lifesaving duty. My (broken) collarbone is knitted […]
Read more...I don’t know if any readers know Jay Leonhart, but his “Sometimes I Think” from Salamander Pie is my theme song. I cannot relate to a lot of behavior considered normal. So I hate to personalize this discussion, but the subject of this post involves one of those areas of human activity I find to […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns Is it just me or did Secretary Geithner just talk out of other side of his mouth? Today he wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal with two Asian leaders to mark a big meeting of APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Singapore. The WSJ article started out […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns I would be especially interested to hear the views of NC’s Asian readers on this post because Japan and China are usually considered antagonists with a long and sordid past. Andy Xie thinks the Fed is on an inflationary path. Last month, he wrote an article in Caijing which […]
Read more...By George Washington of Washington’s Blog. The Wall Street Journal admits this week that economists blew it: The pain of the financial crisis has economists striving to understand precisely why it happened and how to prevent a repeat… The crisis exposed the inadequacy of economists’ traditional tool kit, forcing them to revisit questions many had […]
Read more...By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns This comes via the FT: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange. The decision by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers […]
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